


Strange Magic

by Tabithian



Series: Light the Path [14]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim's mother warned him, when he chose this. Chose <i>Gotham</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Anon asked for a JayTim magic AU where Tim's a witch with a familiar and Jason is you know, whatever. This is where everything starts, so. *hands*
> 
> Fig is short for Figment, because I like to think I'm hilarious like that. /o\

Tim's mother warned him, when he chose this. Chose _Gotham_. 

Warned him that tying himself to a city like her was going to kill him one day, and it looks like she may be right. (She's always right when it comes to things like this.)

“Hi?” Tim says, hands held up. 

The gun aimed at his face dips slightly, man behind it staring at him incredulously. “Did you just - ?”

Well.

“Sorry,” Tim says. “I'm not really sure what the protocol is here.”

For as long as Tim's lived in Gotham, he's never actually been held at gunpoint.

The man lowers the gun so the barrel is pointed at the floor. “The hell is wrong with you?” 

And.

“I wouldn't even know where to begin,” Tim answers honestly. “Also, look out behind you.”

The man's lip curls as he brings the gun up, fast and smooth, finger squeezing on the trigger - _rude_ \- but Fig is faster, has chosen a fitting form. Takes some of the shadows with him when he leaps. Lines of black like spilled ink over gold and solid muscle that brings the man to the ground, gun flying from his hand to skitter under one of the counters.

Oh, and that's quite the glare he has. Could probably kill with it, if he wanted. (Knew how.)

“Fig,” Tim says, chides, when his familiar bares his fangs, snarl escaping his throat. “He's injured."

Not life-threatening, or Fig would never have – okay, no. He would have tackled the man regardless.

Fig snorts, puts his weight against the man's shoulders, makes a pleased sound when the man grunts, pained, and lowers his head to growl into his ear before his eyes flick up to meet Tim's.

“He tried to kill you.”

That's a loose interpretation of events, really.

“Fig.”

A heavy sigh, Fig snapping his fangs just short of the man's ear before he climbs off him, stalks over to Tim, tip of his tail twitching with agitation. “You're an idiot.”

“True,” Tim says, reaches out to run a hand over Fig's ears, lets himself smile. 

As always, Fig is quite the vain creature. Tim's sure he's never seen such a lovely looking tiger, bold lines and unspoken threat in the way he moves.

Another heavy sigh, Fig surging up to butt his head against Tim's chest, chuffs at him. Worry and affection, exasperation for this _human_ he's chosen.

“I wouldn't,” Tim says, when the man moves for one of his knives. Looks at him. “Fig won't listen to me a second time.”

Bit of a lie, but Tim would hate to prove his mother right so soon.

The man _growls_ , and Tim feels a thread of Power from him, interesting.

Fig rolls his eyes at whatever expression is on Tim's face and turns to look at the man, ears going back. “You are here uninvited,” Fig says, takes a step forward. “And you threatened _him_.”

Tim.

This is a place of business, his little shop. Nearly everyone who comes through the door is, technically, uninvited. (Fig's always been melodramatic, though.)

“He's running from something,” Tim says, looks at the man evenly when he goes still. “Aren't you?”

Fig hisses when the man pushes himself up in a burst of motion, jacket opening the slightest bit to reveal bloodstained bandages. 

“The fuck are you?” the man asks, eyes going to Fig warily.

And.

“That is a very good question,” Tim admits. 

Even he isn't sure some days.

********

Tim supposes it's part of his family's legacy, this. 

Poor at potions, worse with herbs, but.

They do well enough for themselves. 

Well enough to make the little charms and amulets young people come to buy, eyes wide, when they come to his shop. Small spells worked into them for fortune, luck, love. 

Little things, for the curious. 

Small, harmless. 

Easily overlooked by the things that lurk in the places between worlds.

Wards, protections, for those who remember the Old Ways, these made with Fig's assistance. Flare of his brand of magic to strengthen them, weave them into the ebb and flow of Gotham's own magic.

And these.

Sometimes they draw unwanted attention

Sometimes they're meant to, to pull things out of the dark for a reason, intent behind it.

No, those things.

They're the things a good witch does, goods, services, offered up to the ones who seek them, but Tim's family.

They _see_.

******** 

“What are you looking at?”

Tim shakes his head, looks to Fig.

Rumbling growl from his great chest, “He tried to kill you.”

And.

“He'd be dead if that were true,” the man says nothing but truth in his words.

Tim can feel Fig's magic building, anger, fury, rage, tempered with the need to protect what's his, lines of the form he's taken on bleeding into something _else_. 

Something dangerous for this world.

Can see the man's eyes narrow, mouth thinning, hand going for one of his weapons despite Tim's warning.

“Fig.”

A muffled rumble like thunder, _snap_ , that rattles Tim's bones, and Fig is wholly in this world again, lambent gold eyes meeting his.

“Misssstake,” he hisses, essence taking longer to return from the places it's gone that his physical body.

(A specialty of Tim's, mistakes.)

********

Perhaps, Tim thinks sometimes, it's not so much that his family _sees_ , as it is they watch, observe.

Take note of the world and the things in it, the people, beings and the way they fit in it, or make the world fit to suit them.

Like Fig, an anomaly, something that shouldn't exist. (Reason for the name he allows Tim to place on him, like a veil.)

 _And yet I do, Witch_.

Fig's first words to Tim. A looming presence in the Dark. Great glowing eyes that saw through Tim, picked him apart and put him back together again leaving little marks in the shape of his magic here and there in Tim's soul, laying claim.

In Tim's world, Fig is. He is magic and mischief, a bright spark of light against the darkness that moves ever closer. Acts as Tim's familiar, his companion, _friend_.

In Fig's world, Fig is.

Fig _is_.

********

“You're bleeding,” Tim says.

The man scoffs, lip curling. “Hadn't noticed.”

Tim.

Places a hand on Fig's shoulder, light, wordless request, and Fig.

“Mistake,” he says again, allows Tim his folly.

Tim inclines his head in acknowledgment, because yes, he can feel things moving that direction. Wonders if this is what his mother Saw for him, the beginnings.

“I have a medical kit,” Tim says, careful offer. 

The man looks at him. 

At Fig.

“Oh, wow, yeah,” he says, faux enthusiasm. “Sounds like a fantastic idea. Let's all be friends.”

Fig snorts, looks at Tim.

“I could eat him.”

Not a question, or an offer. Just simple fact.

“The mess it would make,” Tim says, because he's seen Fig with a roasted chicken from the store.

“The fuck?”

Tim and Fig look at the man, tattered jacket and bloodstained bandages. Bruises and cuts and _hurt_.

People like him don't come to Tim's shop by accident.

“You mother was right,” Fig says.

Tim doesn't ask how he could know that when Fig has seen all of him, knows Tim better that Tim knows himself.

“I know,” Tim says, goes to get his medical kit.

********

The things Tim Sees. 

For the most part it's.

Light and color and sound, impressions, feelings.

Nothing that makes sense at the time, but.

 _This_ , a storm on the horizon, crisis drawing near to Gotham. _That_ , a soul in need of aid, love and fear and desperation.

Anger too, born of those emotions. Taken and twisted in on one another until there's nothing left except hurt, a need to make others feel the same.

Tim never knows, understands, until he needs to.

(Absolute certainty, a _knowing_.)

********

“You know,” Tim says, tying off the last stitch. “I still don't know your name.” 

Tim's seen to his injuries, an angry line of torn stitches running up his side. New-made scar on one shoulder that looks like it came from a gun. Little points of broken skin and dried blood from Fig's claws.

Looks at the man, unofficial guest, and raises an eyebrow.

Gets a scowl for his trouble.

Fig lifts his head, opens his mouth - 

“Spoilers,” Tim says, stern, giving his familiar a _look_.

Fig is as good as magic given form in this world, can sift through their thoughts as easily as Tim draws breath, if he chooses.

Tim can feel eyes on him. Turns back to see his guest watching him.

Fighting with himself, caution and pride and other things Tim can't quite See.

Looks at Fig, great tiger lounging on Tim's couch watching the two of them, eyes narrowed to slits.

At Tim. Witch of questionable abilities and a nebulous kind of Power that hinders as much as it helps sometimes.

“Jason,” Tim's guest says, grudgingly. 

********

 _”You'll die here,”_ Tim's mother had said, cold, without emotion. “ _This city, she'll kill you.”_

And Tim.

He'd smiled, looked at her and said, because this is his family's legacy, the ability to _see_ , “ _I know."_

There's more to it, of course, things neither one of them had said, because.

A city like Gotham, she'll break him first. Take his heart and grind it under her feet and look for more before she kills him, no mercy to be had.

And yet.

There are defiant little sparks of light here, in danger of being snuffed out one by one until only darkness remains.

A good witch offers goods, services to the ones who seek them, protects them best as they can.

_"I know."_

********

“You're an idiot,” Jason says, shoves at Fig when he bats at the components to Jason's guns, broken down for him to clean.

Tim makes a noise of agreement, easy little hum. Doesn't bother to ask what makes him one this time, no.

Not with Jason sitting at his kitchen table not – not at ease, but not like he had been when he burst into the shop downstairs days before in search of shelter. Clearly not expecting to find anyone up in the middle of the night, certainly not expecting to find what he had.

Glances at Jason, bandages removed earlier that day and still moving with care.

Jason still treats Tim and Fig with care. Ready to run, bolt the moment they give him cause to. (He thinks, reasons to himself, all clear in the way he watches them when he thinks they aren't looking.)

Unsure.

Of them, the reason he's still here. So many things.

Fig's returned to his preferred form, a joke, a play on Tim's name. Sleek little dragon with ebony scales that have an iridescent sheen to them. Small twisting horns and a pair of deceptively delicate wings.

“True,” Fig says, hisses laughter and a little puff of smoke at Jason.

Jason rolls his eyes, corner of his mouth quirked when he goes back to cleaning his weapons.

There's a little curl of Power to Jason that calls to Tim, something he hasn't figured out yet, something _more_ that only a handful of people in Gotham carry within them. (No wonder then, that so many of them are part of Jason's family, standing guard over Gotham night after night.)

There's a mystery there, small, unimportant in the grander sense. The world, Gotham, doesn't care what people are, only how to use them, break them – but Tim.

There is a legacy to uphold, to watch, observe.

Take note of the world and the things in it, the people, beings and the way they fit in it, or make the world fit to suit them, and this. 

Jason.

Not a mystery, no, not that.

Just.

“The hell are you looking at?”

A puzzle, maybe, and a little more besides, and Tim's always been fond of those.

**Author's Note:**

> :D?


End file.
